My father was a semi–professional
drummer, although his brothers were more active than he was. His brother
George played the trumpet and alto saxophone and another brother, Ernie,
was a very good guitarist. There was always music going on in the house.

Every Sunday we would go and
visit Grandma and this would usually wind up with a “jam” session. On
one occasion when both my parents went to hospital with scarlet fever,
I had to stay with my grandmother and my Uncle Ernie, who was out of work
at the time, and we played records all day long. I was about four years
old, but I remember vividly Charlie Teagarden on trumpet and Benny Goodman
on clarinet playing “Farewell Blues”.

Later on this same Uncle Ernie
introduced me to the recordings of the Quintette Hot Club de France—he
had all their records before the Second World War. So there was quite
a lot of jazz music around me.

In fact there is a family story
that my uncle George, who had something to do with a Rhythm club in those
days, invited Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong home to tea on the occasion
of their visits to England; it appears I met them both when I was quite
young.

I started to play the ukulele
first—it was given to me by my father’s sister as an eighth–birthday present.
I took to the instrument naturally and started to play duets with my Uncle
Ernie, who was on guitar.

At the beginning of the war,
I was evacuated to the country, took the ukulele with me and organised
a sort of concert party with a scout troop. When I came home I started
to transpose all the chords I had learnt on the ukulele to the piano,
and that’s how I started to learn to play the piano. Later, after doing
my conscription service in the Army, I returned home, but since there
seemed to be very little work about, then I was offered a summer season
at Ilfracombe, I took it. Unfortunately this didn’t last long as the ballroom
went out of business in the July.

I came back home and did one
gig and this was on drums. Still I used to rehearse every Monday with
Johnny Flannigan—he’s a very fine drummer, and now an important man in
the music business. We used to go over to John’s house—they had very large
rooms where we would rehearse: me on piano, Johnny Wiltshire on guitar
(he is also an M.D. these days), a bass player, an alto saxophone, and
John Flannigan on drums.

I used to write off scores
of letters advising people of the Quintet. Eventually we got a gig in
Workington. Johnny Wiltshire had got a job with the Felix Mendelsohn’s
Band, so CIiff Dunn joined us on guitar. We spent a month there.

Once again on our return, there
was no work for the band, so I went after a job with Johnny Dennis and
his Ranchers. They were being engaged for a season at Fishers Restaurant
(later it became known as the Celebrite). Felix King the pianist had previously
worked the restaurant, so the proprietor asked Johnny to add a pianist
to his “Ranchers”. He also had a vocal group called the “Cactus Kids”.

So I went along to the Dinelys
rehearsal rooms for an audition and as I walked in the door I bumped into
his music director, Ivor Raymonde. Ivor knew of my abilities and asked
me what I was doing there. When I explained, he said “Forget the audition,
you’ve got the job”.

The engagement was not due
to start until the following January and in the meantime I needed work.
I did a rehearsal with the band and they seemed happy with us, and then
Johnny Dennis said to me, “Are you free now? We have a gig coming up in
Birmingham and I would like you to do it.” You have to remember this was
late 1948.

He said “I’ll pay you five
pounds for the gig, plus I’ll pick you up, take you to the job. bring
you back home, and provide a meal.”

On the Sunday he picked me
up and drove me to Birmingham. We were a support group to the Harry Parry
Sextet. The personnel of our band was Des Laine (a great clarinet player
who later shot to fame as an exponent of the penny whistle), Ivor Raymonde
on accordion, me on piano, and a bass and drums.

We played jazz all evening.
It was great. After the show Johnny bought me a marvellous meal and then
drove me home. When we arrived at the house he counted out ten pounds,
I said “John—you’ve made a mistake—you said five”. He said “ No, no, you
did well tonight.” I always remember the generosity of that man. He only
booked me because he knew I was out of work. A great humanist. A very
genuine person.

After that I never talked money
with him—it was not necessary. After the engagement at Fishers, which
lasted for about a year, Johnny emigrated to the United States, and I
lost track of him. The band broke up, so the bass player, Peter Hugget
and I formed a band together to go to a holiday camp at Yarmouth.

We had Harry Klein (alto saxophone),
Charlie Wenham (trumpet), Johnny Wiltshire (guitar), Johnny Flannigan
(drums), Peter (bass) and myself on piano. This must have been one of
the hardest gigs I ever worked.

We played for old–time dancing;,
community singing, regular dancing and even bar piano— you name it, we
did it. But I learned so much and gained a great deal of experience from
doing it. I never regretted the opportunity.

While I was playing in Yarmouth
a band that Ivor Raymonde was a member of passed an audition with the
Cunard Shipping Lines for the liner Queen Mary. The bandleader was Frank
Abbott and he had Eddie Thompson on piano. The company felt it would be
too difficult having Eddie on board, as he was blind, so they asked Frank
Abbot to fix another pianist. So Frank wrote to me asking if I would like
to join him on the Queen Mary.

You can imagine my reactions
to this. It was every young musician’s dream, in those days, to go to
New York. But I was joint bandleader with Peter Huggett, so I said to
him, “What shall I do?” Without any hesitation he said, “Pack your bags
and go!”

I’ll never forget my first
visit to New York. We arrived in the early hours and disembarked from
the Queen Mary at around ten in the morning. I found myself walking down
50th Street, awestruck by the skyscrapers, completely bewildered; all
I know is I had to get to 52nd Street. I didn’t know the plan of the city
and had no idea of where to go next. I suddenly spotted a ginger–haired
kid and I said, “Excuse me can you direct me to 52nd Street?”

He replied, “You’re a stranger
in these parts—you sound English to me. Well, in New York it’s quite easy
to find your way around. All the streets go east to west and the avenues
north to south. Why do you want to go to 52nd Street?” I replied, “I want
to find the places where all the musicians are.”

So, that night, off I went,
full of excitement and my first call was at the Three Deuces. On the bill
was the Erroll Garner Trio and the Kai Winding band. I went in, and who
should I see on the stand with the Kai Winding band—but the ginger–haired
kid who had directed me in the morning, playing the trumpet—Red Rodney.
When he came off the stand, he grinned at me and said, “I see you found
it, then.”

And so began a beautiful friendship.
1 worked on the Queen Mary for about six months, during which time I went
and had some lessons from Lennie Tristano—another great experience.

Back in London, after the band
left the ship, we were supposed to go to Fishers Restaurant where I had
been with Johnny Dennis. While I was rehearsing for this, I had a phone
call from Mike Butcher, a writer with a music paper, and he said he was
phoning to confirm that I was going to join a new band led by John Dankworth.

I said, “You must be joking—no
one has asked me to play with the Dankworth Band.” He insisted that I
was going to be a member—he said John had just been in to his office to
give him the line–up.

I was flabbergasted. Rumours
had been going around the profession for about three months that John
was going to start a small band, and everyone was trying to guess who
was going to appear in it. I told Frank Abbott, the bandleader, about
this, so he said, “You’d better check it out right away.” So off I went
and found John in a local hostelry with Eddie Harvey and I said to him,
“I understand that I am going to join your band.” John said, That’s right.”
So I said, “Well, you might have called me.” He turned to Eddie and said,
“Oh! Heck, I knew that was something I had forgotten.”

So in 1950 I joined the new
band. Our opening gig was on the bill of a Ted Heath swing session at
the London Palladium. While with the Seven we did a tour of Germany, and
one night we went to a club and I found a set of vibes there and just
for fun I decided to play them. I enjoyed it so much that when John decided
to form a big band I suggested that I get a set. John thought this was
a good idea as we could form a small unit within the band as a piano–less
quartet.

I used to do a lot of managing
of bands and I continued to do this for the John Dankworth Seven. But
when the Big Band was formed I found this very heavy going. Playing and
managing was getting too much. I was getting mixed up between being a
business manager and a pianist.

I left John’s band and joined
Tony Kinsey. Tony had a quartet; this group made a number of recordings
and many of them appeared on the jukeboxes of the day. This meant we received
quite a bit of publicity, so the gigs started to roll in. We played both
jazz clubs and dance dates. The dance dates were a bit of a challenge
as, although we continued to play jazz on the dance dates, we needed to
change the sound of the band, to create more variety with such a small
combo. So I bought an accordion and Ronnie Ross, who played saxophones,
was featured on clarinet, and we acquired a female singer.

I then started to do some arrangements
in the style of the Joe Mooney Quartet. This was a very pleasant sound,
that made a nice contrast to the stomping jazz we played, and seemed to
work very well with the patrons. Incidentally, Stan Tracey was an accordion
player at one time with a group called the Melfi Trio. The accordion seemed
always to be the poor relation of the jazz instrument family—there are
only a handful of great exponents, such as Art Van Damme and our own Jack
Emblow.

I remember, when I joined the
Kenny Baker Dozen, as a replacement for Martin Slavin on vibes, that when
the guys in the band found out I had an accordion they persuaded me to
bring it along. I used to write about one number a week to be featured.
When the guys heard me, they used to call me ‘Fifi’.

During the time I was with
Tony Kinsey, I was also employed as a music director for Danzigger Films
at Elstree. During this time I worked on a number of ‘B’ movies and television
films. Richard the Lionheart
was one that ran for thirty–nine weekly episodes—also a detective series
called Cheaters with John
Ireland. Because of the pressures of time in film work I now find I can
actually write music faster than I can read it. Very strange.

After I left Tony Kinsey, Ronnie
Ross and I formed a quartet with Ron on baritone sax and me on vibes plus
bass and drums. During this period I was asked to write some music for
documentaries, so I used the quartet for this. I always made it a practice
where possible to use musicians I was currently working with to play in
my other projects.

Later in 1965 I was asked by
the directors of the World Record Club to act as music director for a
club they were opening called Take One. This was being used to showcase
artistes on the EMI label. So I took along the Ronnie Ross Quartet plus
Ray Dempsey on guitar. Among the people we accompanied was Salena Jones.
We did a marvellous album with Salena and the trio, but it was never released.
However they did issue some instrumentals from this session, one of which
made it was called A Walk in the Black
Forest.

Shortly after this the BBC
phoned and asked me if I would like to do a programme on Radio Three.
They wanted a jazz programme, but they asked me to do something different.
Well, I had just finished a series of programmes on television. It was
a play that had been serialised, and in those days we did not record,
so we had to watch the play on a screen, and cue the music in at the appropriate
moments. The music was provided by Lennie Bush on bass and me on vibes.
I remember that on the last episode we only had to play for the opening
titles and the closing credits, and for some reason I fell asleep. Fortunately
I woke up before the end!

After the series finished the
producer invited the cast, including us, back for a party. This was unusual
as normally the musicians were forgotten. At the party he played some
music by Villa–Lobos, the Brazilian composer. I was stunned by the beauty
of it. The line–up was eight cellos and voice of Victoria de Los Angeles.
The next day I went out and bought the complete set of these recordings.
So when the BBC asked me to do something different for the experimental
jazz thing, I thought I would use the eight cello idea, but unfortunately
the budget would not allow this, so I had to settle for four. I already
had three saxophones who could double the woodwind I knew that was essential,
so what I was trying to do was to create an orchestral sound with as few
instruments as possible.

The rhythm section was from
Ronnie Ross’s Quartet. Al Newman, Ronnie Ross and John Scott were the
reedmen; later Bob Burns replaced Al Newman. The four cellos were the
best session men in the business. This was quite a strange experience
for these straight players for that time. Nowadays most string players
can play with a jazz feel, but back then this was rather unusual.

Anyway, everyone settled down
all right, and they really enjoyed the project. Ronnie got so excited
he asked me if he could write something for them. We were given a half–hour
programme on television, plus an interview with Joan Bakewell, who had
her own magazine programme. It was unbelievable at that time. It was all
happening.

Eventually we took the group
to Hamburg and did a number of jazz workshops—this was around 1963. When
we got back from Germany, Gaby Gabarro (cellist) was doing a session with
Johnny Franz, an A & R man, and while having a drink he asked Gaby
what he had been doing lately. So he said he had just been playing some
jazz.

Johnny was amazed by this comment
and asked who with, and
Gaby told him that I had been doing some jazz workshops in Germany.

This was a lunchtime, so as
soon as Johnny got back to the office he called me and said he had heard
I had been running a band with four cellos, and did I have any tapes?
So I said I had a tape of a broadcast I had done. I took the tape over
to Johnny’s office and no sooner had I got home then he phoned to say,
“Right, let’s make an album.”

I asked him what he wanted.”
Please yourself.” I wrote a lot of original material plus a couple things
like Milestones and a beautiful
ballad by Hoagy Carmichael called New
Orleans. We did it in one day, three sessions. I had laid a
buffet on at home after the recording and I asked the guys back, including
Johnny. When he sat down he said, “OK, when do we do number two?”

I don’t know what happened
to these sessions, but some time later I was told that Quincy Jones had
done something similar. I guess you can’t keep a good idea down.

Shortly after this it seemed
that all the session people were using four cellos over here. About three
or four years ago we were looking at some ideas as what to put on at Wavendon,
Cleo and John’s music establishment, when John Dankworth said, “Have you
still got the charts with the cellos in them? Let’s put that on one night.”

So we had Jimmy Hastings, John
and Ronnie Ross as the reeds, and Paul Hart’s wife, who is a cellist,
arranged the four cellists. It turned out to be a great night.

I went back and rejoined John
and Cleo in 1979 for their American, Australian and New Zealand tours—this
I did until 1982. Then I did mostly solo piano work, trios or quartets.
I enjoy playing solo piano as well as the vibes. In fact I have learned
quite a lot from playing the piano, especially harmonically. I also enjoy
playing with fellow musicians in small combos. Playing here at the Jersey
Jazz Festival with Dick Morrissey and Dave Cliff on guitar with the John
Woodhead Trio had been a great delight.

The interesting thing is, we
all seem to think very much alike, and we certainly listen out to each
other, unlike some guys who take off and forget who else is on the gig.
I enjoy both the piano and vibes. It’s very interesting that Ira Sullivan,
who plays all the saxophones and trumpet, never plays the same way on
each instrument. He appears to approach each instrument with a different
perspective. These kind of musicians seem to adapt to whatever instrument
they happen to be playing at the time.

Recently I have been working
on a new idea. I love the music of Brazil, and last year BBC producer
Keith Stewart asked me to get together a six–piece, so I used Jimmy Hastings
on tenor sax, Dave Cliff (guitar), Malcolm Creese on bass, and a Brazilian
percussionist, with Bill Eyden on drums. We did a broadcast last August
and it worked very well.

I had a phone call from a publisher
the other day asking me if I had anything I was working on, and I mentioned
this project, and the fact that I had written a lot of material for the
group, so it looks as though I am going to get the Brazilian project off
the ground, which will be rather satisfying. We hope to do a recording
from this.

Every now and then I get the
urge to write a suite. For instance, some years ago when I came back from
Zurich, I wrote a piece called “Impressions of Zurich”—this was for a
nine–piece band and was subsequently broadcast. I wrote another when I
returned from the States with Cleo and John. I am currently working on
a suite about my family and naturally I am going to call it “Family Album.”

I have had a shot at writing
a musical—this I did in collaboration with Tony Kinsey. We wrote a show
called The Lillywhite Boys,
which was presented at the Royal Court Theatre, starred Albert Finney
and Georgia Brown, and was directed by Lindsay Anderson, We had quite
a success with it, but unfortunately we could not get it into the West
End. This was way back in the 1960s.

I have had a couple of ideas
since —in fact I was going to do a musical on “Santa Claus”. I had spent
a considerable time on this project when suddenly a movie came out on
the same theme starring Dudley Moore. So that put paid to that idea.

But who knows what the future
holds? I believe to survive in our business you should be versatile.